The Riskiest Thing You Can

I Want To Die At A Hundred Years Old With An American Flag On My Back And The Star Of Texas On My Helmet, After Screaming Down An Alpine Descent On A Bicycle At 75 Miles Per Hour. I Want To Cross One Last Finish Line As My Wife And My Ten Children Applaud, And Then I Want To Lie Down In A Field Of Those Famous French Sunflowers And Gracefully Expire, The Perfect Contradiction To My Once Anticipated Poignant Early Demise.

I Love This Race From The Very Depths Of My Heart. It Gives Me Motivation And It Transcendsme Like Nothing Else In The World.

There Were Something Like 50 Good, Arduous Climbs Around Nice, Solid Inclines Of Ten Miles Or More. The Trick Was Not To Climb Every Once In Awhile, But To Climb Repeatedly. I Would Do Three Different Climbs In One Day, Over The Course Of A Six- Or Seven-hour Ride. A 12 Mile Climb Took About An Hour, So That Tells You What My Days Were Like.

Suffering, I Was Beginning To Think, Was Essential To A Good Life, And As Inextricable From Such A Life As Bliss. It’s A Great Enhancer. It Might Last A Minute, But Eventually It Subsides, And When It Does, Something Else Takes Its Place, And Maybe That Thing Is A Great Space. For Happiness. Each Time I Encountered Suffering, I Believed That I Grew, And Further Defined My Capacities – Not Just My Physical Ones, But My Interior Ones As Well, For Contentment, Friendship, Or Any Other Human Experience.

Do It Even If You Shouldn't, Do It Becuase You Want To, Do It Becuase It Will Make Things Better.